THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



241 



Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agriculture. (Mead.) 



IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS HEADGATES AND WATERWAY, SKALKAHO CREEK, 

 BITTER ROOT VALLEY, MONTANA. 



to their mass the upper layers are heated most and 

 the air lying nearest the ocean's surface is the coolest. 



"The application proposed by the foregoing scien- 

 tific truth is that a great flue will be built. The plan is 

 that the entrance to the flue over the ocean's border 

 should be twenty-one miles long, and under the deck 

 or roof of this flue, which is supported like a suspen- 

 sion bridge, the height is 250 feet. This gives a trifle 

 more than a square mile of area of cross-section at the 

 entrance of the flue. The same area of cross-section is 

 maintained throughout, the height increasing as the 

 width of the flue diminishes, until where the constant 

 width of the five miles is reached the height is one- 

 fifth of a mile or 1,056 feet plus the necessary allowance 

 for the slack of suspension cables. 



"This is relatively but little higher 

 than the Eiffel tower, and the sup- 

 porting towers within the structure 

 may be trussed columns braced in 

 all directions by steel cables, rather 

 than towers. This structure should 

 be carried to the height of 10,000 feet 

 on the San Bernardino range. As 

 I have planned it it should be enclosed 

 in glass set in steel sash ; a large part 

 of which is arranged to act as gravity 

 valves to yield to storm pressure. 



"Such a structure once built would 

 take in the sea breeze throughout the 

 whole breadth of its entrance. A) 

 larger volume of moist sea air than in 

 the course of nature is often con- 

 centrated on any mountain tract of 

 equal area to the San Bernardino 

 heights, even where the heaviest pre- 

 cipitations on earth occur. 



"When the air once starts to blow 

 through such a flue, as it must as 

 soon as enclosed, there is nothing in 

 nature that could reverse the current; 

 it would flow on forever as long as the 

 flue remained. The cold produced by 



expansion would cause the moisture 

 contained to be precipitated, not as 

 rain, but in the form of powdery 

 snow to be distributed over the 

 heights, while the cold blast accom- 

 panying this snow would maintain 

 it there unmelted until a great glacier 

 would be formed. 



"The water which the melting of 

 this glacier would supply," says Dr. 

 Woolridge in the Los Angeles Herald, 

 "could be collected by a canal encirc- 

 ling the mountain group near the 

 level of 3,000 feet, and in reservoirs 

 occupying the valleys above the line 

 of that canal. This water would be 

 amply sufficient to make a garden of 

 all the desert lands adjacent, includ- 

 ing the great Mojave desert, while the 

 chill imparted to the upper atmos- 

 phere at this governing point 'would, 

 I doubt not, greatly modify the cli- 

 mate and increase the precipitation 

 throughout the whole arid region 

 from Mexico to Montana." 



PROPOSED COLORADO GLACIER. 



Having been requested by W. L. Grubb, presi- 

 dent of the Colorado Cattle and Horse Growers' as- 

 sociation, and Senator Tomkins, of Chaffe coun- 

 ty, to write an article giving my views on the part the 

 timber plays in conserving the snow that falls during the 

 winter, I take pleasure in doing so, believing that it will 

 be interesting to the public. 



The general accepted theory is that the cutting away 

 of the timber tends to lessen the flow of water in the 

 latter part of the irrigating season, while the exact op- 

 posite is the case. 



Having had twenty years' .actual experience and 

 residence in the high altitudes of the mountains, I know 

 whereof I speak when I say that if every vestige of tim- 



Courtesy U. S. Dept 

 IRRIGATION 



Agriculture. (Mead.) 



INVESTIGATIONS ORCHARD IRRIGATION IN SANTA CLARA VALLEY, 

 CALIFORNIA. SUPPLY DERIVED FROM PUMPING. 



